Within days of this issue hitting desks, it will be ten years since Lehman Brothers’ collapse marked what swiftly became the great financial crisis. That event was only the clearest symptom of a disease that had been infecting the banking system for more than a year before Lehman filed for bankruptcy on 15 September 2008. …
Continue reading “A decade since Lehman the profession still mired in the New Normal”
‘Who would possibly invest in a law firm?’ asks one leader this month, reflecting a common view. Yet the current vogue for floating law firms suggests momentum is indeed building, more than a decade after the introduction of the Legal Services Act. In recent weeks, DWF has turned heads with talk of a £1bn float …
Continue reading “Comment: Law firm IPOs still don’t make much sense (but soon could)”
Through much of 2018 the talk has been that major City firms have been extraordinarily busy. GDPR, a rebound in transactional activity as deals put on hold by Brexit are pushed through, a robust showing from the global economy… And this has translated into… not that much. London’s Big Four Magic Circle firms have packed …
Continue reading “Comment: The new outlook for City leaders – Casinos hitched with a utility”
Alex Novarese, Legal Business: How do people feel about the service from law firms? Simon White, Cognizant: There are a lot of individuals I like a great deal but as institutions, I struggle with law firms as a concept.
Our cover feature this month largely speaks for itself in assessing the changing face of partnership as Millennials begin colonising the senior ranks of City law firms. Within five years, this group will be the driving force of elite commercial advisers. Yet this column is not about the changing attitudes of youngish lawyers, more an …
Continue reading “Comment: Yet unremarked, generational conflict cripples City law”
LB: What was the background to the merger talks? Therese Pritchard (TP): I started it. It’s my fault. In February of 2017, I was interested in strategic growth. So looking for a firm that had the same culture and practice areas that are successful or where they were interested in growing. I did some reading. …
Continue reading “Eyes on ‘the prize’ – BCLP’s leaders on going all-in for transatlantic union”
Recently a surprisingly popular column in Legal Business took a jaded view of the state of leadership in major law firms. The nub of our argument was that the law firm c-suite had descended into technocratic managerialism over genuine leadership, leaving once bold institutions to put off crucial decisions. That piece drew on years of hanging around …
Continue reading “Comment: 16 easy steps to making you a great managing partner”
Returning with our fourth annual Disputes Yearbook, by far the largest we have yet published, it is still a great time to be a quality litigator or arbitrator at a well-positioned team. While the flood of banking-related work that gave such a shot in the arm to the City contentious market post-Lehman has now largely …
Continue reading “The New Normal is good news for litigators”
This year we return to the team format of the GC Powerlist, our flagship annual report chronicling the elite of the UK’s buy-side legal community. This team perspective inevitably takes us closer to state-of-the-legal-industry ruminations than the editions focused on individual excellence. Glancing at this year’s report, the second team-focused edition after the first in …
Continue reading “It’s a team game at the legal elite but the mix of players is changing”
Hats off to my old shop, Legal Week for a quality scoop on Allen & Overy (A&O) and O’Melveny & Myers doing the come-hither shuffle. As usual, various outfits have lifted it without credit or attempted to imply that they forecast it. I didn’t forecast it and haven’t given it more than a cursory kick-of-the-tyres …
Continue reading “Comment: Allen & O’Melveny – a research-free, hot take”
